


Control

by Fleur_de_Violette



Series: Whumptober (more like hurt/comfortober-november-december) 2020 [11]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is a good brother, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Whumptober 2020, he tries, poisoned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28247559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fleur_de_Violette/pseuds/Fleur_de_Violette
Summary: Jason never had much control over his life, his death, his life again. If he had, he sure wouldn’t have made the evening what it was.Had he had the choice, he wouldn’t be taking care of Tim while Dick was fighting off an unknown poison.Would he?Wumptober day 22 - Poisoned.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Whumptober (more like hurt/comfortober-november-december) 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984960
Comments: 8
Kudos: 203





	Control

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So, I know the timeline of this is messy but let’s consider this story is set after Bruce came back from being lost in time but in an alternative universe where Jason started hanging out with the family pretty much just after Bruce came back. Also, we’re gonna forgot the whole Jason in Arkham thing. I’m taking the canon I want and tossing out the rest. You can’t stop me. 
> 
> Anyway I hope you’ll enjoy the fic.

Jason is done. 

Jason is so done. 

He isn’t a family man. He didn’t exactly had a choice in the number of people that ended up in his comically huge family. And when he started to hang out more with them, it wasn’t to be dragged into drama. 

He didn’t come back for this shit. 

(Though, it does raise the question of why did he came back, the one he tries not to think about too much. No philosophical or religious questioning about coming back to life before morning coffee.) 

Anyway, he isn’t made to handle people yelling at each other. He is usually the one who does the yelling. When he was Robin and Dick and Bruce engaged in screaming matches, he usually ended up around a cup of tea with Alfred, making himself as little as possible. 

But he isn’t little anymore, and he shouldn’t go hide when Tim and Dick are yelling at each other on a rooftop. He probably should do something. This isn’t the time or the place to resolve unsolved issues. The reason of the yelling is a knife Dick took by shoving Tim out of the way, unnecessarily according to Tim, messing up with the computer hacking he was in the middle of doing. 

And Jason just wants this to be over with. Dick needs medical, Tim needs some apologies, both of them need to calm the fuck down, and Jason needs his bed and not talk to anyone for at least 12 hours. But when did life ever gave him what he wanted? 

“Guys, maybe we could do that later?” 

Like, at the manor, when Jason would be long gone and someone else could handle the emotional stuff. 

They don’t listen to him. Well, at least they waited until they were in the relative safety of a rooftop before stating. 

“I had everything under control.” Repeats Tim for the umptieth time. 

“Well, that didn’t seem that way to me.” Replies Dick. They are going in circles.

“And have you considered that maybe you might not always be right?” Mumbles Tim before saying, louder. “I can take care of myself. I’m a big boy.” 

Jason sighs. It’s like rematching Dick and Bruce from his time as Robin. Dick seems to come to the same conclusion, because his eyes soften. 

“I know you can take care of yourself. But you’re my brother, and it doesn’t stop me from wanting to protect you.”

And Jason thinks this is the end of it. That they would finally be able to go back to the manor and put an end to this failure of a night. But Tim isn’t done.

“Well, that sure didn’t look like it when you gave Robin to Damian.” He murmurs before going on the next rooftop, efficiently putting an end to the argument. 

Jason winces. He knows the wound is still fresh, Bruce having just returned from being supposedly dead by the time he started going on mission with his family again, and he understands why Tim is hurt. 

He knows the pain of having this title ripped of you, and Dick, of all people, should know it too. He also knows things were way more complicated than that, and that Dick had to make a choice. 

But right now, he just wants to get back to the cave, change, and go back to his appartement. And, while the wound isn’t deep, Dick still has a knife in his shoulder.

“Come on, ‘Wing. Let’s go home.” 

The word feels foreign in his mouth, but he ignores it. Dick looks at him, completely frozen. Had Tim’s words hurt that much? 

“Hood?” He sounds a little lost. “Something is wrong.”

And that’s all the warning Jason gets before his brother crumbles to the floor. Jason curses and run to his side. He turns Dick, slaps him a few times trying to wake him up, unsuccessfully. His brother is pale, cold to the touch, and one check at his pulse informs Jason it’s fast and weak. He curses again.

Why would Dick be in shock? He hadn’t lost that much blood. Jason moves to inspect the wound and freezes. Because he knows that kind of knife. Why didn’t he notice right away what kind of knife it was? He knows this thing, and he knows there is a poison compartment inside it. He removes the knife quickly, securing it inside his belt. 

And then what? He takes a few second, loosing precious time before deciding what to do. Finally, he gets his communicator. 

“Nightwing down, poisoned, possibly critical. We need an evac.” 

Several noises cross the line. Tim makes a weird sound that is surprised but also terrified, Damian starts yelling, Batman shuts him up and inform Jason he’s sending the batmobile to their location. Jason raises his head, and Tim is here. He probably turned around. 

Tim is here, and Tim is frozen. He just looks at Dick with an unreadable expression, unmoving. His bottom lip is moving, like he want to say something but can’t. 

“Red Robin, help me get him down.” 

Tim doesn’t move, doesn’t let any sign he heard him. 

“Red Robin!” Jason barks, letting as many Batman as he can in his voice. He hates it, but Tim responds to that voice, instincts and training overriding his emotions. 

Every sign of worry and guild is washed away from his brother face, and Red Robin reminds expressionless. The mission comes first. Red Robin is like Batman on this point, and while Jason can’t keep the rage flooding to his vein at this kind of behavior, it gets the job done.

The next minutes happen on autopilot. They get Dick to the batmobile. Go to the cave, let him under the care of Alfred. The Red Hood extract the poison from the knife, put it for analysis and let the computer compare the result to the databases of known compounds. In the meantime, he takes the spectra, removes his helmet, and goes over to were Red Robin is seated. 

“Hey, you’re a better chemist than I am, care to look at this?” 

The kid’s eyes look at him, and suddenly, he’s not the Red Hood anymore. 

Both their masks are gone, and this is just Tim looking at Jason. And where Red Hood is capable and scary, Jason has a feeling of helplessness that never really leaved him. 

He is powerless, always has been. Powerless as a kid in crime alley, unable to help his mother, powerless as a homeless child, barely able to keep himself living. Powerless as Robin, powerless when a monster of a man was taking his life. Powerless over his own resurrection, powerless against the pit tainting his heart and mind. 

Powerless in front of Tim’s eyes. 

Powerless as he hears the small “It should have been me.” Getting out of the kids’ mouth. 

And fuck that. 

Fuck this shit.

He doesn’t want to be powerless anymore. He wants to be the one in control, the one he tries so hard to make other believe he is. 

And he wants to be a big brother to this kid. Isn’t that ironic? He tried to kill Tim, he hated him. And yet. 

And yet, now he wanted to be a big brother. To be as good as Dick. To be better. To be what he had wanted Dick to be when he was a kid. 

(He doesn’t want to blame Dick right now. Not while his brother is potentially fighting for his life in the next room. He knows Dick tried, he does. He just wishes things had been different. They probably all do.) 

So, he’s gonna try. He seats next to Tim. 

“No.” He says, before realizing he’s going to have to do better than that. “It shouldn’t have been you, nor was it your fault.” Maybe if he repeats it enough the kid will start believing it. 

Tim takes a breath. His voice is broken.

“The last thing I said…” 

Jason can’t hear the rest of the sentence, because the roar of the batmobile covers it, and Batman and Robin exit it in one smooth movement. 

Bruce doesn’t spare them a glance, going directly to the computer to get the result of the analysis and then rushing into the medbay. Damian though. Damian removes his mask and looks at them with all the fury a twelve-year-old is capable of.

“You were with him, how could you have let that happen?” 

Jason is already so done with the big brother thing he endorsed less than five minutes ago. He knows Damian is just a child, worried for his mentor, brother, and probably most important person wellbeing. But he’s not helping, and Jason doesn’t know how to help him. 

“Please Damian. Don’t.” He says, uselessly. The kid won’t stop his rent. 

“This is unacceptable that…” 

He stops suddenly and drops. Jason’s heart jumps into his throat, before he sees Cass catching him with one arm, the other still above his neck where she did a nerve pinch. Jason hadn’t even seen her entering the cave. 

Her method is a bit extreme, but it works. Jason is glad he’s not alone in this older sibling stuff. She looks at him, silently telling him she’s taking care of Damian, and he should focus on Tim, before heading upstairs with her charge in her arms. 

The cave is suddenly awfully silent. Bruce took the spectra, leaving them with nothing to do. Tim is silent again, whatever he was ready to say earlier buried deep down inside his brain again. 

Jason doesn’t really know how to make things better, doesn’t know if there is anything he can do to make everything better. But he remembers something Dick did when he was Robin and Bruce got injured, that one time his older brother actually sticked around. Something he saw Dick do several times with the younger kids. 

He takes Tim shoulder on an awkward hug, and pull him toward him. And then he starts rocking them both gently. 

They stay like this for a long time. 

So long, in fact, that Jason had started dosing off when Bruce gets out of the medbay. Tim’s eyes are still open, but he doesn’t seem fully there. Jason looks up at Bruce. Neither of them has the energy to fight right now. 

“How is he?” He asks. Bruce sighs.

“He’ll be fine. You can see him but only for a few minutes.” 

Jason nudges Tim up, and walk with him to the medbay. Bruce’s gaze follow them for a long time. Dick, unsurprisingly, is still unconscious, the steady beeping the only sign he’s still alive. He looks like a corpse, and Jason knows something about being a corpse. 

“I would have dodged the knife.” Says Tim, quietly, and Jason wonders who he’s trying to convince now. 

“Maybe.” He agrees. “And you guys need to have a serious conversation about what happened. But, um…” He thinks for a second. Is he really going to defend Dick? “He lost a lot of people, can you blame him for being a little overprotective?” 

Tim doesn’t move. Jason sighs. 

“Come on, go hold his hand or some shit. You’ll sort your issues later.” 

Instead of taking the hand that hangs limply out of the bed, Tim climbs in the cot, a few centimeters away from Dick, close but not touching him. He’s still in full costume, boots and all, and Jason thinks for a second that Alfred will have a fit, before remembering the old man probably wouldn’t care that much given the circumstances.

Jason takes the hand Tim didn’t claim, running his fingers on his big brother knuckles.

He always felt as if someone else had control over his life. Like he’s a character in a video game and some sadistic child has the controller. He didn’t choose his game over. He didn’t choose his continue. 

Jason closes his eyes. 

In that instant, he’s the one who chooses to try again.

**Author's Note:**

> So. Like other writers, I often ask to forgive for medical mistakes, as I am no doctor. I’m a chemist, and there are chemistry mistakes in this. I know this, I hate when characters use the “all in one analysis machine” because I absolutely want this in the lab. But this is a “Jason learns how to be a big brother” fic and not a “Jason does chemistry” fic, so I used the convenient path. I tossed some words like spectra and databases to clear my conscience, but I don’t know if it makes it worse? 
> 
> That being said, I hope you enjoyed the story. I hope the end doesn’t fall too short, with Tim and Dick not making up, but that would have been either super long and taking the focus away from Jason or rushed, and I didn’t feel like doing either (in this story at least).
> 
> Have a nice day and a nice end of the year!


End file.
